All testified before congress a year long probe into that process and. 10 you look at some of the damages and the pandemic lets call it spend one we have a lot to get through so lets get started. On one day 4 of the most powerful men in the United StatesTech Industry theyre being questioned on whether their platforms have violated antitrust laws in recent years as theyve risen to dominate the internet now arties Rachel Blevins joins us with the latest rachel what have we heard so far was there as we saw c. E. O. s from the 4 Largest Tech Companies in the country testified before the house judiciary antitrust subcommittee as part of an investigation looking at whether they have achieved such a major monopoly that they are now illegally stifling their much smaller competitors because of the crown of virus pandemic these testimonies are being carried out virtually and the line up includes the c. E. O. s of all the betting Google Facebook apple and amazon now each of. These companies have been accused of manipulating their platforms and search results to promote their own products and interests google users know that any time they search for a product the 1st several results are typically advertisements but today the topic of conversation included how google has benefited from those results. What is the value of the part that you do use the google ads for i mean its a substantial part of your business whats the whats the actual going 2cb3cb. In terms of revenue its i dont 100100 plus 1000000000. 00 but thats a lot of money mr which i now facebook was quick to defend its size and its acquisition of instagram and whats up by claiming china is also looking to dominate the social media world with the popular out tick tock but it was facebooks ownership of instagram which it previously acknowledged was a competitor that raised questions about whether it violated federal law. Mergers and acquisitions that. Would tend to a competitive threats violate the in. Your own words you could just instagram to neutralize a competitive threat if this was an illegal merger at the time of the transaction why shouldnt instagram now be broken up into a separate. Well congressman i think the f. T. C. All of these documents and review this and unanimously voted at the time not to challenge the acquisition. For rituals is really interesting given the timing of all of this that were in the middle of a pandemic why did they choose it to have these these hearings now well thats one of the things that was mentioned by the leaders of this committee they noted that during the lockdown that weve seen as a result of this pandemic it has really hit Small Businesses the hardest you know your mom and pop shops are the ones that are now going out of business and a lot of people are now going online theyre going to Facebook Google amazon all of those sorts of websites which means that the Tech Companies that are being discussed here today are actually getting even more powerful so a lot of them are saying well now is the time to hold them accountable now is the time to push for more oversight especially now as we see a lockdown that we dont see ending and a lot of social Media Presence even more now during the pandemic are to correspondent Rachel Blevins thank you for that report. From our lets turn to the us cohost and investigative journalist ben swan lets dive deeper into this ben should lets start with the general question right the broader look into this should there even be a line drawn when it comes to internet businesses and how they can they be or how big they can be absolutely there should be its not a question of whether or not a company can be big its whether a company can violate entire trust laws by absorbing and as rachel explained theyre kind of swallowing up competitors in order to create anticompetitive practices in a free market system if you dont have competition you dont have a free market you have one company that dominates everyone and everything and thats what antitrust is there to stop so its not a question of how big facebook gets its a question of how big of facebook or google or an amazon gets by essentially devouring anybody who is a competitor and by the way its almost ironic that facebook complains about the chinese and to talk when. Facebook actually looked at purchasing talk at one point and wanted to do so well are they looking to create something similar a platform of their own on facebook now if that were to be banned here in the United States its really interesting and mind boggling what were seeing but there are clearly a number of issues when it comes to these monopolistic structures like being able to freely express various political viewpoints or even something as simple as just knowing youre getting the best deal as a consumer on assures us were getting the best deal no matter what but are we seeing any of these issues right now when it comes to this online activity. Or were seeing issues across the board right when it comes to Tech Companies we have nothing but issues right now on one side you have you know the issue of Tech Companies censoring speech you and i talk about this quite a bit but its really a very serious issue and were seeing it at an absolutely staggering level right now where media Tech Companies are essentially deciding what speech is allowed to be heard and what is not facebook and instagram that you know collaborative is essentially some of the worst offenders in terms of removing content that they dont like you tube is doing the same thing on the other side of it you have amazon thats not doing that but they have their own practices for instance amazon as we have talked about in the past has been accused of going and using the data that it collects on merchants on its site to create its own products and essentially underbid merchants on its own site using their data and their information so theres a lot of what you would say say are antigay competitive practices that are taking place as these Companies Get bigger and Something Else thats very important you know rachel was talking about the timing of this its important to recognize that over the past 4 months as weve been under this coronavirus lock down Tech Companies have gotten much bigger much richer and much more influential and powerful in american and Global Society and that is something you have to take a very close look at as more and more of the population shifts to their thinking their communication their shopping everything moves online and then you mentioned data obviously these Companies Collect so much data from there are consumers we know that but isnt that an issue and itself when is that a Cyber Security issue that can be present and then were going to we see. So its not just the Cyber Security issue i believe that this is really at its core a human rights issue the question becomes Data Collection who does that data actually belong to and this is something that Congress Actually is shying away from the. I dont want to address this question because the reality is that amazon Facebook GoogleInstagram Twitter tick tock all these companies have one thing in common right no matter what business theyre in the actual business theyre in is the business of harvesting peoples data the question becomes who is data who does it belong to whose property is it is my date up my property or is it facebooks property is it instagrams property is it googles property and that is going to become i predict one of the most fundamental questions of our time and its a question that these Tech Companies are not answering because if you if congress would look at this and say hey in fact your data actually belongs to you the user and therefore if a company like a facebook or you tube or an amazon uses that data they must compensate you for your data you were completely it would be a complete game changer you flip this whole tech argument on it said but Everyone Wants to run away from that because they dont want to acknowledge a very simple idea that your data actually belongs to you one much like youre saying at this is not a human being brought up today which is a really interesting but i do want to get to this question of one last question facebook c. E. O. Mark zuckerberg hes arguing that if the u. S. Health innovation defending facebook obviously the Chinese Companies will surpass them is there really any validity to this argument or is this kind of a plan to to capitalize on that rising anti chinese sentiment within u. S. Government for that push or even more regulatory rollbacks it absolutely is its absolutely untrue that if facebook is forced to stop since or even people in the United States that china will take over the world those 2 things have nothing to do with each other the idea that to talk is big and if to talk keeps growing facebook has to continue to innovate facebooks not in of innovating at this point in fact facebooks not doing any innovation what theyre doing is theyre going out and buying up smaller competitors in order to prevent competent. And as i mentioned at 1. 00 in to buy to talk themselves and now facebook is leading the charge in trying to plant the seeds that tick talk should be banned in the United States and theyre a big part of that argument as well so what theyre doing is now trying to use Regulatory Power to keep out competition the other thing thats not really being discussed today and its very important is that section 230 protection thats been given to Tech Companies its important that congress remembers you cannot get rid of section 230 it creates innovation on the internet you cant allow the abuse of it which is what companies are doing theyre abusing it you dont get rid of the law that protects people doing it the right way you would force the law to stop those who are using it the wrong way and it will be interesting to see where we go from here because of law and whether or not the u. S. Competition laws will will be changed after this event stick around here because i have one more story to cover with you today so. As protests continue on a nightly basis across portland more federal officers have been called up to intervene and this is having a huge effect on Business Owners well after protests for us kicked off a may many Business Owners struggled with their businesses suffering from broken windows and even being looted while some Business Owners there are struggling to deal with protesters the calling up of even more federal agents has them even more concerned that violence will only increase well joining us now to discuss is the us cohost and. Again and so on welcome back ben we know that Oregon Governor announced that a phased withdrawal of federal agents is going to start this thursday and that will that even help to diffuse this some of the tensions or the situation there. Well i would think that it would help to diffuse some of that look the important thing to remember is that when the feds are sending in essentially back up to help put down these protests in theory theyre not supposed to be really dealing with protesters who are essentially destroying business is a portland theyre really there to protect federal buildings and federal monuments federal installations from being damaged or destroyed by protesters in theory thats the idea in reality having federal agents there does seem to agitate people even more it brings about more of a sense of agitation now its important to know that the governor of oregon has said they will begin a kind of withdrawal of those federal forces from portland beginning on thursday but the compromise that was reached is that local and state police would be used to protect those federal monuments and federal buildings important so its not that the feds are abandoning its that the state of oregon has agreed to protect the question is will that appease protesters because you and i both know sarah there are lots of different kinds of people there are people who are legitimately protesting Police Brutality there are certainly agitators in that crowd there and tea for groups in those crowds there are people who want to sow chaos and there are others who are looking for reform theyre not pushing for the same agenda and in portland i think you see a bigger clash of that the just about anyplace else in the congo a lot of people taking advantage of the situation and you see the people who are looting banga as we watch these protests continue and there seem to be these new groups joining in now and it just indicates that these really may not be slowing down at all and who else is getting involved yes so apparently you know you not only do you have as i mentioned you know you have the b. L. M. Protesters who are out there and certainly you have anti protesters who are out there but there have been new groups that have been joining up over the past couple of weeks and theyre actually signifying themselves by wearing matching colored t. Shirts so in one case teachers are. I mean out in there marching wearing red t. Shirts weve seen groups of nurses march weve seen mothers and fathers as different groups marching they all were different colors in some cases its yellow its up its orange so what theyre doing is theyre trying to signify as kind of potential. Demographic blocks professional blocks of people who are showing solidarity with these marches so we do see certainly growth there whats really is surprising about this era is were talking about somewhat you know 5060 days of daily and nightly protests in portland and this keeps going on and it doesnt seem to be slowing down and the other thing is the city of portland in the state of oregon does not seem to have any plan on how to put this down or and when i say put down i dont mean with the with a heavy hand but how do you eventually deal with people to a point where you say you dont need to keep burning the city you dont need to keep destroying businesses we have to come to some kind of agreement here and thats the tough part because it has been going on for so long but i want to get to the Macro Economic level here ben protesters and theyre even angrier now because of these broader structural it issues with the economy and that will provide little to no opportunities especially now and the middle of a pandemic how are these protests going to change that. Well thats a really good question im not sure these protests can change that there is a legitimate issue here in terms of Macro Economics and the fact that you have a lot of these protesters who are not people who necessarily have a bright Economic Future in front of them you have a nation thats heavily indebted you have a lot of College Students who have gone to college and they have massive amounts of debt cant find work you have a system thats not working for everybody and so i think what were seeing is kind of a bleed over yes we have the issue of Police Brutality thats a major kind of cornerstone of these marches but it is larger than that and the people who are there seem to be frustrated with more than that so the question becomes where. Do we begin to start to deal with issues to resolve those frustrations im not sure but just about anybody is giving answers that right now because unfortunately the answers go back to systemic problems in the Education System in the professional systems in the wall street in Banking Systems these are deep issues that i dont think leaders necessarily want to tackle right now theyd rather talk about things that are more on the surface because when you get short attack those issues theyve got to deal with themselves and they dont want to do that its really true you make a great point theyre talking about these complex issues going into the root and the issues of the problem that the Economic Impacts at these families and these people are suffering from that star at education they start at such a young age and having these resources for them which which its going to be a hard one hopefully at some point will will be able to tackle in some way shape or form the west coast on investigative journalist ben swan thank you for being with us today you know that there are things. Time now for a quick break but stay here because the return china and the European Union are looking to strengthen economic and trade ties but how will the u. S. React thats next as we go to break here the numbers are bad but. Is your media a reflection of reality. In the world transformed. What will make you feel safe. Isolation from the unity. Are you going the right way or are you being led. By. One. His faith. In the world corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Aura maybe in the shallows. Conservative media tell us the political left in the United States has become radicalized like the job im sure in an era of socialism profoundly changing the country on the other hand by many in his orbit nothing would fundamentally change so we should visit or is it as you say just. A dark industry comes to life in los angeles every night. Dozens of women sells their bodies on the streets many of them underage. Los Angeles Police reveal a taste of their daily challenge if youre going to exploit a child here in los angeles were going to come out of the office is going undercover as 6 workers and customers to fight. On wednesday the Federal Reserve held its 3rd scheduled meeting since the start of the chronic pandemic well fed chairman powell noted Economic Activity in jobs they picked up in the recent months they still remain low willpower expects a long road ahead for economic recovery even with the improve Economic News in may and june overall activity remains well below its level before the pandemic and the contract contraction in real g. D. P. In the 2nd quarter will likely be the largest on record a full recovery is unlikely until people are confident that its safe to reengage in a broad range of activities. Well the agency made no changes to the Interest Rates and voted to keep rates close to 0 thats until employment recovers and inflation picks up the fed reiterated it commitment to use all emergency tools to support the economy but many are wondering what tools the fed will use if the economy were to shut down again well the next biggest move would be for the fed to pay the 10 year treasury rate essential using its asset purchases to target Interest Rate levels at a certain part of the yield curve. This week the European Union and china held high level trade and economic dialogue well according to the e. U. The 8th round of talks included a joint response to the coronavirus pandemic and Global Governance issues bilateral trade and investment concerns and cooperation in the area of Financial Services and even taxation while the e. U. s executive Vice President all these dumb brodskys said the Current Crisis gives us no other option but to work hand in hand with our Global Partners including china by pulling together we can recover more quickly economically and make progress on areas of mutual interest such as trade and investment relations well the meeting allowed the 2 sides to discuss the importance of bilateral and trade relations based on key risk reciprocity and a level Playing Field well for more on this were joined by so much christiane and host of the economic update and author of Understanding SocialRichard Wolffe professor lets start with you today looks like china and the e. U. Theyre seeking to strengthen these economic and trade ties and this is comes at a time with the deepening feud with the United States but how is this relationship now between china and the e. U. And what do each side really hope to gain from these talks. Well i think youre seeing the beginning of a reaction that was already underway and will continue. In a way but also it was to charge it was. Just strong giving general. All of this so at a time of global cringe that make they have both decided that they need to work more closely together and that will further isolate the United States and that will further slow recovery everywhere and so it is a decision theyre made in the face of the United States that is willing to subordinate all of its International Interactions to good political expediency whoever is in the white house and i think youre going to see more and more of bad as. Well its interesting for us or because yes what we know that a lot of European Countries do have a strong trading relationship with china and theyre not going to cut ties with the 2nd largest economy but kristie that the 2 sides are just really trying to accelerate these negotiations they want to conclude a china e. U. Investment deal by the end of this year we saw the u. S. China trade deal take nearly 2 years is this likely for them to to be able to make this a come to an agreement by the end of this year. As it stands right now it doesnt look that optimistic because this week is the 31st round of talks for this investment deal known as the e. U. China comprehensive agreement on investment and so this comes after many many weeks where nothing really substantial was achieved and this comes as as you mentioned bilateral tensions between china and the e. U. Are also escalating over the coronavirus pandemic as well as the National Security law over in hong kong so this is likely to be the last round of talks before the e. U. Breaks for the Summer Holiday so progress right out is imperative and this agreement is supposed to cover a wide range of issues warning them part of china u. S. Deals such as eliminating market barriers equi caps and eliminating joint venture requirements for companies wishing to go into china basically in order to ensure that come companies can and can compete on the same grounds and equal footing with Chinese Companies so right now china has responded that they have reduced its investment barriers. And but they have yet to make enough substantial progress in reforming state firms but right now they are warning the e. U. That it should keep it the expectation of all expectations reasonable and at this time this investment deal should not overhaul chinas entire state owned enterprise system nor should they risk changing the entire political system right there looking at more of an open playing level feel like they said in some reza prosody the professor wolf the u. S. Appears to be watching this obviously from the sidelines very closely how will the u. S. React if the e. U. Manages to actually extract some of these major concessions from china especially in these upcoming investment talks. Or i think the temptation is going to be to cut a deal with the europeans that gives the europeans a bit of an advantage over the United States subtle way to make sure that there are many many Large American Companies within norm is investments in china will exert much more pressure than they already have on the drunkard ministration to change its ways you know the chinese are now you know all the American Companies that have gone there over the 30 where the last 30 years conventional evilly on the whole premise that they could produce in china and ship it back into the rest of the world including the u. S. Theyre not happy with what mr trump has been doing and they are becoming his political enemies and that may yet change american policy. If the chinese can work a deal with the europeans both of them at the expense of the United States really will be interesting to see how this plays out but kristie over in the u. S. The fiction moratorium it expired last friday i want to turn things over to this now more than 12000000 renters are actually at imminent risk of getting booted out essential whats the situation like here yes so the moratorium has expired nearly 4 months after this complete. Nationwide shutdown and these 12000000. 00 americans are all behind on their rent payments and also this friday some 25000000. 00 americans they will no longer receive the 600. 00 veteran unemployment checks and given the current discussions this week benefits could actually get slashed from 600. 00 down to 200. 00 per week or even nothing at all if no deal is reached in congress so this would be absolutely devastating for the entire american middle class as we would see more households unable to pay rent and the months ahead so back in 2016 there were about 2300000. 00 evictions and analysts estimate that we could see that many just in august so states where renters are pressured the most right now are states such as florida texas tennessee and many more urban areas such as new york and manhattan there are to see an exodus from the cities where people have been forced to downsize already so the coming weeks are going to be crucial on whether or not there is another extension of the red moratorium which a lot of landlords they are protesting they definitely are there a lot of people hoping for this extension because jobs millions of them are still not coming back especially any time soon because of the spike you must cohost christine professor Richard Wolffe thank you so much for your time today and. A call for this time that you can catch boom bust on demand on the branded portable t. V. Well see you next time. Every crisis in america as if theres a shoulder into the junk bond market with a longer maturity at a slightly lower coupon rate and theyve been doing this now for 40 years to the point where america is in debt at this. Engineer. To the point of an extinction of back as many countries as the global. 54 jets and more than 1300 military personnel are headed to heal some air force base in alaska where is that to say come on ill show you whats the reason for any type of enhanced u. S. Military presence in this area russia. What is it suddenly about the South China Sea that makes it so that it 11000000000 barrels of oil. Take a look at this map who really owns what kind of says no it belongs to us india says no we claim that that belongs to us both of these countries have Nuclear Weapons capabilities there is reason for concern so thats why were going to drill down on this story for you today right here on the news with rick sanchez where you know as we always like to say we do believe by golly its time to do news again. Because a cop beat him hes so good that even such a bag. Im not going to tell anybody. Feel to find the next. Top live on. The infidel to feed the dog she even. The deflection what do you see oh say he is a dip. What is hard for you to say. That is going to that are familiar to. You. You know a lot about. It but you got to go to look up. Mongolia while the name. On the bottom theres a play in the street your loan control cannot hold. On to a new person and they do need. 100. 00 guns a new law and gun to run the series. You can go to you mark you join you. Hello there im a military man going to washington quentin broadcasting from our to air National News headquarters in washington d. C. The 1st night top story 1st disturbing video has surfaced at a new york abele and protester is dragged down all the way in an unmarked vehicle is this the new warm up for undercover cops were going to discuss then President Trump is in texas tonight campaigning and talking big oil but his trip got off to a bumpy start after ike texas congressman who was supposed to join him on that trip tested positive for rhona virus and despite tensions between the worlds 2 largest economies china is growing its presence in foreign markets details on that straight ahead